Revision as of 05:09, 7 October 2013

This article is to provide information on how to get Arch up and running on the Chromebook series of laptops built by Acer, HP, Samsung, Toshiba, and Google. Currently overhauling all of this and trying to get more specific model pages built with uniform methods listed here.

Samsung Series 5 550

Reminder- Needs to be moved to it's own page given the boatload of new development surrounding this model including with coreboot / seabios.

Developer Mode

Developer mode on the Samsung Series 5 has two levels of access, "dev-switch on" and "dev-mode BIOS". With the first level you enable a command line shell, which lets you look around inside the GNU/Linux operating system, but does not let you run your own versions.

The second level of access installs a special BIOS component that provides the ability to boot your own operating systems from either removable (USB/SD) or fixed (SSD) drives. Both levels of access are completely reversible, so don't be afraid to experiment.

The second level (described above) is what we want in order to install Arch.

The switch is behind a little door on the right-hand side of the chromebook (as linked above). To enable the developer switch you open the door, use something pointy (paperclip or toothpick) to move the switch towards the back of the device, and reboot.

Warning: Be gentle with the developer switch! Some people have reported that the developer switch breaks easily.